


The Deer Park

by Strummer_Pinks



Category: Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-12 11:33:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10489989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strummer_Pinks/pseuds/Strummer_Pinks
Summary: The Royal Deer were long thought to be mythical beings; half human, half deer, fleet of foot and clever of nature, the proud tricksters of the forest.The kings and queens of old were said to keep them in the Deer Park adjacent to their castle, now overgrown into a thick forest.   Food was provided for them and forest rangers guarded them from hunters, all for one purpose; when the old ruler passed away and a new monarch was to be crowned, he or she first had to pass the ultimate test of strength and cunning; for only one who could catch and kill a full grown royal stag could ascend the throne.Now, hundreds of years later the tattered remains of the Deer People subsist in the deepest reaches of the forest, hidden from human sight.But the world outside the Deer Park Forest is changing.  New humans from the west have invaded the lands baring new weapons.  Rumple a dishonored stag exiled from the herd, lives a desperate existence with his yearling Baelfire on the fringes of the forest.  When an unfortunate accident forces him to seek help from traveling medicine woman Belle, fear and suspicion give way to friendship. But will their bond be enough to protect them from Gaston the hunter?





	1. Chapter 1

The Deer Park

Belle would never forget the first time she saw a royal deer, in the house of Gaston LeRoux.

He was a younger widower, this Gaston, his elderly father a minor member of the king’s court.

Back then Belle Martinique was a young woman, too, the daughter of Maurice the wealthy royal inventor. As such she was under no illusions as to why she was there, at this particular party, along with so many other young women of marriageable age and wealthy family. She was still young, although a little above the usual age of marriage and an excellent catch to those who took note of such things. 

Belle pretended not to care, but in truth she did not want to die alone. She wanted to have love in her life and children, but more than that she wanted adventure, a way out of the world assigned to her by her sex, that seem to closer tighter around her with each passing day. In her childhood the future seemed like an endless hallway of doors, each holding out the promise of new adventures, fresh opportunities and mysteries to uncover, but now it seemed a hallway she ran down at top speed as one by one the doors closed behind her. 

The perfectly contained little world she’d be raised in was one where no knowledge was forbidden because of age or gender. She used to her father speaking to her like a respected colleague whose advice he valued. She’d be brought up to assume the natural focus of one’s days was the dissemination of knowledge and pursuit of scientific endeavor. 

It had been a shock to realize that the world outside their little workshop did not correspond to the values she and her father lived by. 

She was twenty-two now, but still within the prime of her child bearing years, but she had a hard time imagining herself being with a man in the way one had to, in order to conceive. Still, even if her only images of sex came from a small group of poorly rendered woodcuts from a medieval manuscript, she had no trouble imagining herself with a child on her lap, a little one, soft and warm, to hold and teach the wonder of the world to. She pictured herself in her daydreams, holding a small round hand in hers as she pointed out which plants in the garden were good for medicine and which ones made sweet tea. She had grown up as an only child but always wanted to play with the younger siblings of her friends, to tutor the young scholars and children of nobles at the court. She had a passion for science and knowledge and it was hard not to bubble over with enthusiasm over things other adults thought gauche and laughable. Children however, children seem to understand and appreciate her ability to be excited about the world, being so excitable themselves. 

Belle had a beautiful face, but she took little notice of her dress and was always untidy or stained from working with her father’s chemicals. The fashions and protocols of dress, were perpetually ignored for values of functionality and comfort. 

Of course, Gaston’s mother, the Duchess assured him, the proper attention to dress could well be taught and Belle like an errant, overly-exhuberant hunting pup, could be brought to heel given appropriate discipline and time. Her father let her run amok, but she could learn. Though it was true, the girl did not have noble blood, importantly as head royal inventor and king of catapults, her father had a large fortune and the ear of the king thanks to the catapults’ success in the recent war. A better prospect for her son’s advancement the Duchess would not soon find. The only obstacle—unforseen at the time was strangely enough the girl herself, who seemed remarkably uninterested in the match. This was a strange phenomenon for Gaston. He was used to men and women running after him to flatter and praise him whatever he did. He knew he was entitled to such adulations, which is why he found himself becoming increasingly irritated with the uppity Belle. 

“She thinks she’s so smart and high-class because of her education,” he complained to his mother, “which just shows what a mistake it is to educate a girl. Gives them hopes and ideas above their station. One might as well teach a sow poetry for all the good it will do her in life.”

His mother nodded sagely and added, in the full bloom of her life’s experience that “Belle had clearly forgot what her real role in the grand scheme of things. You see, my son, beneath all her fancy words and chatter about books, she is just like the rest of us women, another keyhole in a door to be entered and make no mistake, you are the one designed by the hand of the maker to be the key.”

Of course, he would have to lure her in, make her comfortable so he could do his work without interference. And then she would be brought to heel, and once suitably humbled, he would have his prize. After all, it had worked with his first wife, that is until she accidentally “tripped” and fell from the topmost tower of the castle. 

The ostler, busy shoeing horses in the courtyard, never did report that the tip of a crossbow arrow had been found lodged in the breast of her gown. After all, who would he have told? The militia answered to Gaston. 

“Come,” he said to his future betroved. “I will show you my study!”  
“Oh good I’ve been itching to get a look at that book you were telling me about. Is it really a true codex from the time of the ancient Verdante dynasty? It is said they came from across the Eastern sea to rule these lands before our ancestors came here to conquer them.”

Gaston smiled at her girlish stupidity. She would believe there were other lands across the sea. Why everyone knew the continent they lived on was the only one and that if you journey too far East you would fall straight off the earth. But he held his tongue in agreement with her and said “that is what our scholars say of them.” Of course, he employed no scholars and knew no such book existed in his collection and that his study mostly contained archery prizes and hunting trophies. In fact, the only book in the room was the massive “Game Book” in which scores of LeRoux family members had entered their hunts into for several generations. Reportedly the lists of kills went back to the First Duke of the Border Marsh more than three hundred years ago. Of course, Gaston himself never bothered to find out if it was true, because he never bothered to read that far back in the massive tome. He only liked to look at it to see the immutable record of his own magnificent kills in black and white and to compare them favourably with those of the guests invited to his lavish hunting parties during the season.


	2. Chapter 2

Now he directed LeFou to light the lamps in the room and stood back to wait for the customary oohs and aahs of amazement and congratulation as he unveiled the magnificent heads of beasts mounted on the walls all around the room. 

But Belle only favoured the headswith a cursory glance. “Beg your pardon Gaston, but where is the book you were telling me about? It would prove invaluable to my research and that of my father in the history of this land. I am willing to pay handsomely as I mentioned to purchase it, but perhaps if it is not here then I should go back to the feast. My father is probably wondering where I ran off to. I should’ve said something, but—“

“Oh well,” laughed Gaston roughly. “I thought I’d left it right here on the desk, but it seems to be missing.”

Belle eyed the desk skeptically. It looked like it had never seen a book in its life. It was covered with gun oil, shot, and dirty powder horns and various hunting muskets in different states of repair, all heaped on top of each other. 

“Le Fou, you were the last to read it weren’t you?”

“Uh—“

“You should be more careful with other people’s property,” scolded Gaston as he grasped Belle a little too tightly around the upper arm and steered her further into the room. 

“Now what do you think of these beasts over here? Caught them on safari in Outer Agrabah,” smirked her host.

Belle stared open mouthed at the twin heads presented to her now. They looked like black basalt formations from a distance, but up close resembled tigers, made of hard packed black sand where fur should have been. The heads were huge, each at least as wide as she was tall and where the eyes should have been, dead blue diamonds filled the sockets. 

“Bet you’ve only seen pictures of them, am I right?” he asked, elbowing her in the ribs. “The djinn tigers of the black sands-- they say there are only a hundred left in all the world. Well, ninety-nine, uh, no, ninety-eight now, ha ha.” He laughed with a deep rumbling chuckle, accompanied by LeFou, his companion’s oddly high pitched one only one breath behind.

Belle nodded in mute shock, which Gaston took as appreciation. It was true what he had said, she had only seen such creatures in pictures in illuminated manuscripts. She could not read the swirling Agrabanian writing edged in gold around them, (although it seemed to move from right to left instead of left to right to her practised eye), but the tiny, brilliantly coloured pictures told a story of thieves and tigers who spoke and guarded caves full of unspeakable wonders. The massive black sandy creatures with their glowing blue eyes sparkling in the moonlight made the white robed sheiks bow their heads in reverence. In the pictures they had looked as tiny as mice in proportion to the massive tigers and the sandy black rock manes of the beasts swirled around their faces like living sandstorms.

Seeing these samples here in this room felt unbelievably wrong somehow. They seemed so small and diminished, unimpressive compared to the shiny black beasts with gold flecked claws she’d seen in books.. 

Tentaively she touched the sand pebbled texture of the bottom of the nearest head. The stone-like face did not alter. “I heard they can live to be a thousand years old,” she whispered.

“Not this one,” enthused Gaston and LeFou laughed along with his friend again. The crowd of glassy eyed creatures, stags and griffons and a badly mangled three headed cerebus, stared down gloomily at them from their niches on the walls, their accusing gaze a pressure Belle could feel at the base of her skull. Suddenly, the finely dressed fish she’d had for dinner began to turn in her stomach and she thought she might be ill all over the thick bearskin carpet. 

“Gaston,” she said firmly, trying to hide the tremor of fear in her voice. “Thank you for this tour, but I want to go back to the party.” She did not wait for him to convince her to stay now, but turned and began walking to the door. She noticed there was only one way out of the room. 

A large, overly muscled arm swiftly shot out to block her way. 

“Now now, can’t have you leave just yet, not until you’ve seen what you really came for,” his voice rumbled as his other arm snaked around her waist. “You must see the newest prize!” he insisted, practically dragging her forward further into the room she was now desperate to leave. 

“Uh, Gaston,” broke in Le Fou uncomfortably, critiquing his friend’s behaviour for the first time that evening. Gaston brushed him away with the back of his hand and Le Fou was silent once more, having voiced the only protest he would that evening.

“So they say you’re obsessed with studying all that dusty old rubbish in the royal library about the fallen kingdom of Verdante.”

“Yes, but I would hardly call it rubbish. I’ve been studying the texts for sometime and they are real. It’s just hard to determine what is fact and what is fabrication. Many of the documents are clearly based on oral histories of events that happened years before, so they were already somewhat distorted by the time they were written down. We have so few fragments of real—“

“Forget the texts. I’m sure you know the legend of the Deer Park.”

“The royal deer of the house Verdante that they kept in their own private forest, yes the legend is well know. It’s said even now the local people swear they’ve seen sightings of—“

“No, no not that. Come on, aren’t you supposed to know this stuff Little Miss Bookworm? What’s the other part of the legend?”

“I would take it kindly if you would not call me that. My name is Belle and if you must insist on hearing it, the legend says the forest started out as a hunting park beside the castle.”

“And? How did they select their kings, these royal muckity mucks of Verdante?”

“A man or woman of the royal lineage could not be crowned until he or she killed a full grown stag of the royal breed. The deer of that lineage were said to be of unusual proportions and extremely fleet of foot and clever, nearly impossible to catch, so it was a real test of smarts and skill,” she nodded approvingly.

“Ah,”said Gaston with a fatuous smile. “So what, pray tell me, do you think of me now?”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Belle, perplexed.

Only then did she notice the golden rope attached to the scarlet curtain which she’d mistaken for a window blind. With one tug from Gaston’s mighty hand, it fell away to reveal another trophy head, mounted on a gold-edged slab of mature oak. 

At first it seemed unremarkable, in comparison to the others; just another large stag, with full antlers boasting more than a dozen branching tines, much like several other deer and caribou heads lining the walls of the room. 

And then she noticed the face. 

The areas around the facial features; eyes, nose mouth and forehead were bare. In fact, if it wasn’t for the extremely wide set eyes or the tufted, deer-like ears and of course the two foot high, three foot wide rack of antlers emerging from two prominents bumps above the creature’s shaggy brown eyebrows, it would have looked completely human. 

Belle clamped a hand over her mouth in horror. 

“You see, I ought to be crowned king by those ancient scholars you love so much. Instead—I’ll just settle for your hand in marriage! How about it?” He spun around and reached for her, one eyebrow cocked at a seductive angle.

Belle stared at his hand in disbelief, stunned, both by the fact that a proposal of marriage as revolting as this could exist and that Gaston could misjudge her reactions so badly as to think it was actually welcomed. 

Looking at her reflection in the polished black surface of the dead glass eye of the formerly majestic royal stag, perhaps the last of its breed, killed to decorate the wall of a man without the soul to appreciate even one iota of its true living majesty, Belle could see her own future and fled.


	3. By the Riverside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumple is finally introduced...but is it the end for our intrepid stag so soon after his appearance?
> 
> XXXXXXXXX

Rumple was not sure how it had all gone wrong so quickly. Now time was moving in weird ways, both fast and slow. He knew he was passing in and out of consciousness, the barrier between reality and dream growing increasingly hazy. Even in dreams he wasn’t sure whether what he saw and heard were visions of the past or future or things made up entirely from the broken pieces of his own past. When he spoke he was not sure if it was out loud or only in his head. Yet, every so often he would wake up to the pain and find himself there, lying in the mud by the bank of the river, his body shivering with fever. The pile of leaves that concealed him provided little warmth. Sometimes he dreamed Bae lay beside him or fed him bitter medicine root from a rusty flask. Other times he woke to find himself achingly alone, forced to crawl to the river for a gulp of water. He had to drink, but knew he shouldn’t go near. The river was danger, hadn’t that point already been driven home clearly enough and yet he thirsted so that his mouth was white and flecked with spit.   
Eventually he could barely lift himself up on the bank, and so he lay, half in, half out of the water, delirious with fever memory and fantasy tangled together in his mind, along with all those potential futures. The sun burnt his skin, but he felt no heat, only frost and he heard his mother speak to him, the gentle elderly doe with the fading eyes and failing body he’d been forced to leave beside a stream much like this one so many years ago. 

“Go on son, go on. The herd is on the move,” she said.   
“Then it will go on without me,” he stubbornly replied.   
“No, you must go with it.”   
“I choose to stay here with you.”  
“It isn’t your choice to make my dear— you have a responsibility the herd needs you.”  
“They don’t need me! They don’t even like me.”  
“Don’t confuse the two. They may not always like what you have to tell them, but they do need you.”   
“You need me more!”  
“As keeper of the ancient wisdoms, the herb lore, the Sight---“  
“But I don’t have the Sight—“  
She reached up suddenly and with surprising strength clasped his hand. He felt or perhaps he’d just imagined it—a kind of energy, a liquid power moving through from her hand to his, a strange power settling into him behind his eyes and it was wonderful and beautiful and terrifying all at once.  
She gaze back at him, a curve of mischief and remorse in her broken smile.   
“Now you do.”  
Then the power sank low like burning embers hidden under the logs of a fire and he realized that she was right, he was the seer now, for all the good it would bring him.


	4. The Bells Ring no more From the Tower

As she sank into his arms, she began the catechism, which he took up as her voice began to fail her. Even in such emotional turmoil the phrases were not difficult to remember, he’d learned them as a child and repeated them every morning and night to himself, as if the ancient royals spoke to him through his own voice down through the years their ancient benediction to his breed: 

“You are a proud stag of the lineage royal, herald of kings, chooser of the leaders of men, wisdom is your heritage. But let not cleverness be thine only strength for thyself alone; never lose site of the herd, the herd moves you and you move with it. The herd is protection, the herd is love, the herd is rest from running, the herd the end of loneliness and fear, the herd is strong thanks to you and you are strong thanks to the herd. You protect the herd and the herd protects you forever and ever until the last stag is gone from the park and the bells ring no more from the tower.”   
He said the words together with her as she faded away, the last words said on his own through tears as he knew by then she was already gone.  
The bells ring no more from the tower.


	5. Chapter 5

And he had loved her but now her memory was tainted with bitterness because she had lied to him—maybe not intentionally, or maybe with good purpose in her heart, but lied all the same. Even the words they’d said together as she was dying— really, it was all one great lie.  
Such a cruel thing in the end, to give one’s life to a lie. 

Lie, lie lie-- A bird singing overhead mimicked the words in his thoughts, or maybe he just imagined it.   
But it seemed to him that even the bird knew that now, in his own time of preparation for the end, the ancient words did not comfort him, because he believed them not. Neither would Baelfire say the ancient catechism over him, because he had never taught Bae the words. He would not lie to his child, no matter how harsh the truth could be. He would never let Baelfire hear him lie, because above all they had to trust each other parent and child. After all, they were all each other had, and each depended upon the other alone for survival. Thus there could be no secrets between them and if Rumple regretted it, it was too late now.

But still Rumple longed for comfort, and the words came to his lips unbidden by his logical mind, it was so easy at this point to slip into mindless routine and let the prayer take over. 

“You are a proud stag of the lineage royal,” -- Except he wasn’t, proud that is. Instead, he was dishonoured, a traitor to the herd, the cut off ear he saw in his reflection in the muddy river, the badge of shame he could never conceal, that kept him and innocent Bae by extension isolated from other herds and often near starving. Only the most desperate of his kind would trade with a stag who bore that mark.   
And more than the ear itself, which had long since healed over– the memory of his humiliation, the public spectacle—held down in front of the herd, those he’d known all his life, full-growns and foals alike, including his own, the pressure of all those eyes, the power of all the others’ hands on the blade, without them ever touching it, because they all agree it was right.


	6. Chapter 6

“Herald of Kings, Chooser of the Leaders of men” --- A joke that.  The men of old, who kept the hunter’s pact were long gone.   It was said that a thousand years ago the great kings and queens came across the seas to this land with the deer people, both species looking for new lands,   when the old ones they lived in had dried up and died.  And they came to the new land and found it was good and verdant and forested and the deer people went to live in the forest to keep company with the lesser species they found there, and the humans took to the hills and valleys and grasslands where they could farm and find rocks to build sturdy houses with.  The humans grew numerous and then quarrelsome.   It was decided that what they needed was a monarch, a judge of unquestionable authority to settle their disputes and rule them. 

But how to find such a ruler?  A person for such a role would have to be the cleverest, wisest, strongest of will, and greatest of mercy of anyone in the land.  No one group of humans could agree as to who the chosen leader should be.   Everyone put forward a person of their own tribe and so they argued all the more.  At last they realized that no human could be trusted to decide.  Only someone completely outside the human world could be trusted to be impartial.  And so the humans came to the deer people to consult them and together they created a test to choose the leader.   

The two species convened during the bitterest winter any of them had faced since coming to the new land. The deer people were there out of more reasons than simple obligation.  They had problems of their own; the winter was brutal and they did not farm, but lived day to day off what the forest provided through their yearly migration.  There had been fires and drought and they had no stores of grain like the humans did to carry them through lean times.  Because they were constantly on the move, they had no houses of stone to protect them from the frigid winds and fearful snows, or store rooms full of salted fish to eat when the streams were frozen over.  And after many seasons of plenty, the deer people had grown numerous as well and now there was little food to go around.    If something wasn’t done to make provision soon, then all of them would starve, for the winter wasn’t yet half over. 

And so a pact was struck.

There would be a hunt.  The deer people knew the forest.  They were clever and fleet of foot and the stags were the fastest of all. It was decided that any human who could catch and kill full grown stag, (and only a full grown stage, not a doe or a baby) would become the leader of the humans.  And in return for the sacrifice of one of the herd, the humans would provide for the deer people year in and year out, with special feeding stations scattered around the edges of the park.  In addition, the deer people would be protected from human hunters by royal foresters appointed by the new monarch and in return they would refrain from goring unsuspecting humans with their antlers for incurrsions into their territory.  The only time bloodshed would be permitted between the two species, would be when the old leader of the humans died.  Then their descendents would hunt to determined the best among them to lead and the forests would ring with the sounds of trumpets. Then, every proud stag would spike his antlers with flesh piercing blades and the humans would invade the forest with their clumsy horses and bows and arrows, axes and swords and the two species would match wits until a human felled a stag.   And then peace would reign for another generation and the deer people would be protected and fed as tribute to their sacrifice.

And then one day, the feeding stations ran empty and were not restocked.  Trumpets were no longer heard in the forest and the foresters and other armoured humans on horse back vanished completely.

After a few years more humans did appear, but they rode no horses and wore no shining armor.  They walked with feet planted firmly on the ground and appeared to be members of the most lowly classes, thin and stunted with hunger and disease.  They came to the edge of the forest to gather fallen branches for firewood, rooting around in the ground for wild parsnips and medicinal plants.

No horses trode the paths, no royals with picnic parties, eating en plein air in their sparkling finery.   The days of the Pact Hunt were over, but what that meant for the deer people, no seer could foretell. 

As a precaution the deer people mostly stayed away from the areas humans were want to frequent and the humans left in the shadow of the old stone palace forgot the deer people, too busy trying to sustain their own threadbare existence in the ruins. Deer people who did venture into the human lands, late in the night when venturing out to the meadows to nibble the succulent spring leaves, reported on stone mansions in ruins,  a population halved by disease, farms overgrown and scarcely half-planted.  Disorganization and violence ran rife through the land.  It was a dangerous time to be a man, and the human people were hungry.  There were no foresters left to protect the Deer Park anymore and when the fields would no longer yield their usual bounty, bands of humans came to the forest a-hunting.

Without the pact to restrain them, with hunger clawing at their backs, the humans killed without mercy, does and fawns as well as stags. The deer people retreated further into the thickets in the interior of the forest to remain hidden from the humans who had broken the promise of their ancestors. 

The feeding stations on the edge of the forest lay abandoned and fell into ruin.  The deer people dwindled into smaller and smaller herds with the scarcity of ready food.  The clever inventions, tough fabrics, complicated jewelerry, metal knives and efficient fire starters they had once got from their human partners in trade, fell into disrepair and disintegrated with age.  No more could be created without the knowledge the humans possessed or access to cotton fields, sheep wool, mines or forges.   In time the humans of the grasslands came to think of the deer people as mythical beasts and the deer people tribes lost many of the trappings of civilization, losing more of the knowledge they’d learned from the humans with each generation in hiding.


	8. Chapter 8

And then, one day humans in different kinds of clothing appeared in the grasslands.   Once again, horses and chariots carrying helmeted humans returned to the land. These new humans had machetes to cut through the deepest thickets and tall mighty horses to see over the highest hedges.  In their arms they carried a different type of bow and arrow, that laid on its side and never missed.  They fought with the older breed of humans for many moons until they gained dominion over them and all their lands.   

The newcomers wore armor too, although it did not shine in the sun and was not stiff like the armor of old, but rather it moved as their bodies moved, flowing with them like the scales of the water dragon. No knew what to make of them, whether they were an entirely new breed, come from the fabled wastelands of the northwest or a return of royals of long ago, some divergent band of that lineage, come to take up the fallen banner of their ancestors and rule once more. 

There was much disagreement and speculation among the remaining deer people.  Some held to one position and some to another.

The recommendation at the congress of the herds was that if the newcomers they were dangerous to other humans than surely they would be dangerous to the deer people as well, so every stag and doe and foal was told in no uncertain terms to stay away.

But not all herds believed this.  The northern herds, who had not yet seen the new people, even in glimpses, tended to believe that the visitors were the much prophesied return of the ancients.  They believed that the ban on interacting with the newcomers was something the more numerous southern tribes had concocted together, a conspiracy against the northerners, who they could always out vote due to their numbers  

The northern herds believed the southerners were helping themselves to plentiful food at the newly refurbished feeding stations and making pacts with the new people to take away the small bit of territory still left to the northern herds at last. The northern herds at the time were starving due to some colder winters that were worse in the north and they resented the southern herds who refused to allow them to graze any further south to supplement their meagre resources. 

The northern herds remembered the southerners stinginess and refused to heed the decisions of the council.   So when the spring thaw arrived,  the herds of the north swept down into the warmer southern forest, then out of the forest into the meadow borderlands where the humans lived.

The poor farmers then had their first glimpse of the fabled deer people in generations. 


End file.
